Monday, February 23, 2015

Dark Social: Revealing the Dark unseen side of Social Sharing

Ever wondered to what other use the squeezed short urls of some seriously long links could serve, other than obviously acting as their zip versions?
As you probably know that the entire activity through social sharing is traceable unlike the one that happens through emails and instant messaging. Hence, this zone of online social sharing that is not invariably tracked is called the Dark Social, which basically includes emails or instant messages sent to exclusive people or groups. So, for tracking the sharing activity that happens through not so obviously tracked medium is one of the areas where those shortened urls could be used.

I know the popular wisdom suggests that nothing apart from the social big-wigs like Facebook and Twitter could dominate the online sharing scenario. But to regard that knowledge as a fallacy would be the latest study commissioned by RadiumOne.

The study simply summarises that a lot happens outside the realms of what a lot of us think and understand about the online sharing theories. As per the study, the Dark Social share surpasses the combined activity of all the popular social media put together.

Dark Social: Revealing the Dark unseen side of Social Sharing
Dark Social: Revealing the Dark unseen side of Social Sharing



If the figures are to be believed, about 84% of people share content online, out of which 93% use Dark Social media. Also, 32% of those online sharing ones share only through the Dark Social. Though, one of the most defining findings of the study is that 69% of the entire sharing activity happens through the Dark Social, whereas the big brother of social media - the Facebook only accounts for 23% globally.  

It would not be incorrect to deduce that what viva voce is in the offline world, Dark Social is its reliable counterpart in the online one. Coming to think of it, Dark Social activity is bound to happen between two strong contacts and hence, the probability of an actionable recommendation is more likely.

Hence, the time is right for the content marketers to get into some serious deep dive into the emails of their recipients.